AlJazeeraEnglish : One year after his inauguration, Obama still draws plenty of strength from America's black community, which invested high expectations in his candidacy from the start. But polls show white approval of his presidential performance has faded. Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman looks into the status of race relations in the US in the first of a series of reports on the first 12 months of Obama's historic presidency from inside America and around the world. 18 Jan 10
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was born January 15, 1929. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, this young man who envisioned millions to believe in change. A change that demanded all Americans are to be treated equal in the racially segregated South. A man who would be celebrated across the country on this third Monday, a leader to envision Civil Rights for all Americans. If Dr. King was still alive, he would have celebrated his 81st birthday.
According to Wikipedia, The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was founded in January 1957, in the afterglow of the Montgomery Bus Boycott victory and consultations with Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, and others, Dr King invited some 60 black ministers and leaders to Ebenezer Church in Atlanta. Their goal was to form an organization to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action as a method of desegregating bus systems across the South. In addition to Rustin and Baker, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth of Birmingham, Rev Joseph Lowery of Mobile, Rev Ralph Abernathy of Montgomery, Rev C.K. Steele of Tallahassee, all played key roles in this meeting.
Today, the SCLC still holds true to these standards, combat discrimination, focus primarily on education, voter registration, and support for local struggles.
As we celebrate the birthday of Dr. King, I want to remind those who are reading that King was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the African-Americancivil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the United States, and he has become a human rights icon: King is recognized as a martyr by two Christian churches. A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president. King's efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history.
Before Anthony Sowell, there's a little known serial killer named Larry Bright who stalked and killed Black women in Peoria, IL, between 2001 and 2006. Like the Sowell murders, this one had been under the radar of media and police as well.
Serial Killer Larry Bright : Investigation Discovery: "Peoria, Illinois serial killer Larry Bright, 38-years-old at the time of his arrest, was a momma's boy. He liked to watch the news with her nearly every day, and even though he became excited when the news of one of his kills was splashed across the television screen, he became nervous that his mother might detect the thrill and exhilaration that he always experienced during those mother and son moments."
Let's ignore the Rush Limbaughs of the world. By George Cook Letstalkhonestly.com
Let's stop giving hate mongers like Rush Limbaugh's and Pat Robertson the one thing they crave. Attention!
This past week both Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh made hateful comments concerning the earthquake in Haiti. Comments that wont be reprinted here because of their despicable nature.
It's time that the media and especially bloggers turn a deaf ear toward the hateful speech of people like Rush Limbaugh. He thrives on not only the hate that he spews but the firestorm it creates. He loves when bloggers jump on his comments and reprint them for millions more to see, watch, or read.
We have to realize that in our anger when we repost his comments we are only further spreading them to the masses. Sad as it may be every time he says something hateful and it's blown up online his audience actually grows not decreases.
Some of this may just be curious people trying to see if this type of hate is actually on the radio but then there are others who love the message and have found a messenger they were only vaguely familiar with.
Rush Limbaugh is a hate monger and it's time to just ignore him. He accused President Obama of using the earthquake to build bridges to the black community while never saying that he was using it to build his ratings and bring publicity to himself.
Let's al pretend he doesn't exist when he spews his hate. Let's let him be in that dark part of the world he chooses to dwell in alone. Let's focus on the positive out thee and the people who are really trying to change the United States and the world for the better.
There's a major earthquake in Haiti yesterday. Devastating loss of lives and property in Western Hemisphere's most impoverish nation. They need our prayers and assistance. Here are severallinks:
Oakwood is the most affluent suburb of Dayton, Ohio. This month's Smithsonian article highlights the home of the Wright Brothers. Mr. Patterson of NCR fame is credited as being "The Father of Oakwood." Today, Oakwood still attracts the most affluent people, academians, businessmen, and professionals from all over Dayton and beyond.
When other women join in blaming the victims of a killer, we're in real trouble: Connie Schultz
By Connie Schultz
About two weeks into The Plain Dealer's coverage of the Imperial Avenue murders in Cleveland, some women from more privileged neighborhoods began to complain about the coverage.
As Managing Editor Debra Adams Simmons told me, the theme has been essentially this: Stop putting these stories on Page One. They are not relevant to the majority of your readers.
Translation: They are not us.
"They" are poor black women who ended up dead and buried at the home of Anthony Sowell because of addictions, troubled pasts and lousy judgment. We are white suburban women who'd never dream of becoming addicted or succumb to mental illness. And we certainly would never let ourselves be lured into a false sense of security by a man with ill intentions.
No elixir is more intoxicating than self-delusion. It's so comforting to think life metes out justice according to one's privilege and smarts. So dangerous, too.
Anthony Sowell and 169 other registered sex offenders live in ZIP code 44120. It is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Cleveland. Alas, it also claims a sizable chunk of one of the most affluent, educated suburbs in the country: Shaker Heights.
I rented a house in Sowell's ZIP code for 11 years. We were, at most, a 10-minute drive apart. I drove through Sowell's neighborhood countless times on my way to and from work. Most of that time, I saw residents doing what I did. They raked leaves and watered flowers, shouted at kids to stay away from the curb, sat on front stoops and talked to neighbors.
Then, everything changed.
The foreclosure crisis was Cleveland's Katrina, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood. Those who could escape the poverty did. Those who remain live the lives of the chronically bereaved.
In recent years, I started seeing the kind of women police now say were easy prey for the Imperial Avenue murderer: Disoriented, hovering in doorways or weaving along sidewalks. Utterly defenseless.
Should we have foreseen these murders?
Let's at least be honest about this: We are not shocked. We are horrified, we are heartbroken, but only the disingenuous will claim total surprise that a nondescript house in a poor section of Cleveland could hide the bodies of women whom no one describes as mainstream.
Blame for these women runs rampant. And lots of talk about respect, as in: If they didn't respect themselves, how could they expect anyone else to? Why would they go in the house of a convicted rapist? He was, after all, registered as an offender on the Internet.
I ask every woman who is certain that her world bears no resemblance to the lives of the Imperial Avenue victims to imagine one of the following scenarios:
•You are rushing at the end of the day and accidentally leave your cellphone at your office desk. "You can get it tomorrow," a male colleague assures you with a smile. He escorts you to your rapid transit stop.
•It's after 10 p.m., and you realize the kids need milk for breakfast. "I'll be right back," you shout, hopping in the car for a quick run to the grocery. You park in the nearly empty lot and throw open the door before looking around.
•You agree to go out with your friend's friend because he wrote such funny e-mails. You enjoy his company, but make it clear the evening is over when he insists that a gentleman always walks his date to the door.
Each encounter ends with a rape.
Now, let's imagine the suburban version of inquisition:
Why didn't you go back for your cellphone? Didn't you always say that colleague was creepy? Did you even try to fight back? Didn't you look around before you got out of the car? Why didn't you scream? You did a background check on the guy before you agreed to date him, right? Right?
Predictable questions, maybe. But not one of them establishes a right for a woman to be attacked. There is no such right. Not ever.
